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Ban Perry permanently

This blog has, unfortnuately, gone straight to hell. To paraphrase The Who – Meet the new blog, same as the old blog. We have the same cast of characters and the same “Style” of argument. In Perry’s case, that means resorting to vicious personal insults in place of actual facts and evidence. He has already threatened Koolo’s job multiple times (and been banned twice for it), he has accused Hoagie of being a felon, and now he accuses Dana of

diseased views on every one in sight. He shows all the symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in that he is blind to facts and reason and is pathologically unable to take responsibility for himself and his actions.

So, yes, Ban Perry permanently before he further poisons this site. Sure, message traffic will go down at first, but maybe after civility returns to this place, other, more reasonable members of the opposition wiull choose to post here.

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However (and purely for your own amusement) I refer back to a conversation I had with Perry concerning not only the notion of objective truth, but also the notion of an objective standard of justice. I did not refer him to some abstract, theoretical example, but rather to an actual trial, indeed, the most famous trial in history, the trial of Jesus Christ. I asked Perry point blank what was the proper, the just, verdict Pontius Pilate should have arrived at. Perry wimped out, claiming he didn’t have enough information to decide. This, despite the fact that the trial was described from four different perspectives in four different books of the Bible.

Here you have a case where the stakes couldn’t be clearer. You have a man who was innocent by all objective standards, indeed, Pilate himself stated that he could find no fault with the man. OTOH, you have a mob demanding his blood, and there could be a riot if you let him go. So you have a choice: One, let him go free, and possibly many people will die in the ensuing riot, or else, two, throw him to the wolves and appease the mob and only one man dies. If you go by the “Logic” espoused by such Utilitarian” pests as the NZ Troll and his hero, Peter Singer, you go with Option Two. Which is exactly what Pilate did. Or you can be a moral pussy like Perry and refuse to take a side. Either way it shows we are dealing with moral parasites, moral humbugs who wouldn’t be fit to preside over a trial of a five year old charged with chewing gum in class.

DNW, I still say you are wasting your time with these chumps. Perry believes in mush. That’s all you need to know about him.”

and …

Eric says:
Wednesday, 2 January 2013 at 18:23

However (and purely for your own amusement) I refer back to a conversation I had with Perry concerning not only the notion of objective truth, but also the notion of an objective standard of justice. I did not refer him to some abstract, theoretical example, but rather to an actual trial, indeed, the most famous trial in history, the trial of Jesus Christ. I asked Perry point blank what was the proper, the just, verdict Pontius Pilate should have arrived at. Perry wimped out, claiming he didn’t have enough information to decide. This, despite the fact that the trial was described from four different perspectives in four different books of the Bible. …

Yeah, I remember the episode. And this has to some extent been a waste of time. Somewhat in the way of taking a last crime scene photograph after the trial is over and done.

But I don’t want any more equivocation or evasion, or even the possibility of it, out of him.

What I wanted to do here is to use Perry’s latest statements to drive those final nails into the coffin of his moral and intellectual credibility.

He’s said so many unbelievably incriminating things outright recently, that I thought they should be noted as explicitly vindicating (and doing so in his own words) virtually every, if not every, inference and surmise we had earlier made about the bankruptcy his core beliefs.

In fact, in reviewing some of our previous exchanges with him, I see that we tend to forget the sheer volume of these largely repetitious, and only slowly illuminating exchanges.

Well, they should be over now.

Perry’s admitted everything: the moral nihilism, the relativism, the really wacky and incoherent and self-refuting subjectivity.

At this late date he’s reduced to spinning fables concerning the more egregious episodes: wherein he now for example, tries to argue the validity of his previously stated child molestation position without coming off as a moral monster. Now, according to Perry, when he originally demurred condemning child rape as objectively (or absolutely) wrong, all he supposedly meant to say was that he objected to the history of prudish Christian missionaries trying to unjustifiably superimpose an 18 year old age of consent rule on Africa’s traditional bridal customs, happy tribesmen they … or to coerce joy killing Christian church membership out of them.

The only thing he has never yet explained is why, given that he holds that there is no objective imperative to do so, anyone should give a good damn what happens to him or to any of the annoying, nihilistic, and associatively destructive types he characterizes. Where’s the benefit again?

But I don’t want any more equivocation or evasion, or even the possibility of it, out of him.

Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. Perry not only believes in nothing but mush, but he lies about the mush he supposedly does believe in. He rails against any belief in absolutes, but then demands we accept certain absolutes from his ideological ilk, such as raising taxes on the rich. Everything Perry is is a pack of lies from start to finish. Ultimately, all he and his ilk want is power, but they are clever enough to know they should never say so openly, but must instead cloak their power-lust in the mantle of phony kompassion.

Fortunately, Perry is old. He will soon be dead, and turn to rot and worm food. And his lie filled ideology will die with him while the truth will persist forever.

But I don’t want any more equivocation or evasion, or even the possibility of it, out of him.

Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. Perry not only believes in nothing but mush, but he lies about the mush he supposedly does believe in. He rails against any belief in absolutes, but then demands we accept certain absolutes from his ideological ilk, such as raising taxes on the rich. Everything Perry is is a pack of lies from start to finish. Ultimately, all he and his ilk want is power, but they are clever enough to know they should never say so openly, but must instead cloak their power-lust in the mantle of phony kompassion.

Fortunately, Perry is old. He will soon be dead, and turn to rot and worm food. And his lie filled ideology will die with him while the truth will persist forever.”

Yes, the truth goes on, but unfortunately so do the solidarity pimping gambits of the lefty kind.

They make themselves obnoxious, and then while running full tilt toward a brick wall, expect you to interpose yourself between them the natural consequences of their behavior. As if there were some reason to take an interest.

I suppose that that is what nihilism does to them. In a universe, their universe, without intrinsic or traceable meaning, in an inescapable bubble poised to burst and wink itself and every trace of everything that ever existed within it out of existence, they have only the distracting comforts such as they are, of the screeching damned: “Goddamn you” they shriek, “I’m dying here … and you will feel MY PAIN. Pay attention to me, and care! ”

But, on their own terms, they cannot really say why you should.

All they can do is shout unconvincing speeches, and then express outrage and indignation when you shrug. They figure that if they at least gain your attention for a moment, then that is something; as it leaves them feeling more real somehow.

By the way, I actually followed the New Zealand Neurotic’s links; one of which went to a January 2011 exchange I had had on Dana’s old CSPT site with Jeromy Brown of Iowa Liberal. [Jeromy likes to be called by the pen name 'Henry Whistler' now that he is trying to distance himself from his past Internet lunacies].

Following a blatant and failed misrepresentation ploy, Jeromy emitted a series of groundless but indignant ancillary charges which gloriously backfired on him.

Jeromy then, in a move somewhat akin to shouting “I quit” after being fired for cause, coughed up this.

Talk about time wasting.

Nonetheless, I had nearly forgotten how entertaining it was to watch lefties strain themselves over the ejection of steaming piles which they, themselves, were subsequently forced to sit down and publicly eat. While the world found justification in laughing.

Like I said, they do it to themselves [as the New Zealand Neurotic has just done here] and expect you to care.

Again, entertaining, but I can see why Dana shut the whole thing down.

They make themselves obnoxious, and then while running full tilt toward a brick wall, expect you to interpose yourself between them the natural consequences of their behavior. As if there were some reason to take an interest.

I think you’re missing the point. From our perspective, their ideology makes no sense. They openyly declare they have no absolutes, which means they basically believe in mush, in nonsense. But that’s not true. When a left wing organism like Perry states he does not believe in absolutes, what he really means is he rejects OUR absolutes. And his goal is to get us to reject belief in our absolutes, too. Because them we will be forced to accept his very real, but never openly stated, absolutes, absolutes like higher taxes and bigger government, the disarming of the citizenry, and so forth.

I think where you and I differ is on the ultimate goal of these left wing organisms. You seem to think that their goal is self-destrustion (Ayn Rand made this assumption, too) and that we must resist their desire to take us along with them. I think it is quite different. I have asserted for some time that the ultimate goal of the left winger is POWER. If you accept this premise, then all of their stated assertions make perfect sense. Of course, most of them are lies, but lies geared toward the goal of getting ever more power. Indeed, for proof, one need merely read Orwell’s classic 1984, particularly the part where Winston Smith is being interrogated by O’Brien. It is in this setting that O’Brien explains to Winston the true goals of the Party, and that is the never ending pursuit of more and more political power. Indeed, so powerful has the Party become that it now has the power to redefine reality to suit its own political needs. If one country is currently an enemy of the State, then it was ALWAYS the enemy of the State, even if prodigious efforts at rewriting the past are necessary to turn this fiction into fact. This reality distortion (which Perry engages in on a small scale every time he lies about why he was banned) reaches its zenith when O’Brien gets Winston to accept that 2 + 2 does not equal 4, but rather whatever the Party tells him it is.

So, there you have it. 2 + 2 = 4. Left wingers are in pursuit of ever more power. These two are both objective facts.

Of course you can characterize my statements any way you wish, but I need not agree, and in fact disagree with most of the erudite-like hogwash you throw out, for which you offer no proof.

Specifically I speak of your version of objective truth, noting again that each individual is entitled to his/her own version while acknowledging that we are a society subject to the rule of law, which supposedly represents the moral and ethical values held by a majority of the electorate.

I believe in this rule of law as determined by duly elected representatives of the people, subject to being revised whenever the need is apparent to the majority of American citizens. These laws are not necessarily based on objective truths, only to the extent that we as individuals determine. Should we choose to disobey a law which is not consistent with our own moral and ethical values, we have every right to object, even disobey, although if we disobey we are saying that we know that we may be punished. Thus, in addition to our laws, we as individuals have moral and ethical values of great importance to each of us which are our option to exercise.

So this is the view that some tyrant might refer to a “mush”. This tyrant is not you, DNW, and not Eric, or is it?

As I mention in a post awaiting moderation, curious as to what thought crimes I had been guilty of, I actually followed the Neurotic’s links.

One led to Jeromy Brown trying out a tactic on CSPT 2 years ago, which, in short order, blew up in his own face quite spectacularly as well as entertainingly. Buzz. So sorry. Thanks for playing, but you fail, Phoenician.

The other link connected to a verbal shrug I gave in the year before that, to the New Zealand Neurotic’s attempt to snare Yorkshire in a hypothetical high seas dilemma. In fact no Americans, Bill Ayers style terrorists or otherwise, were killed by the Israelis during the violent resistance the Israeli troops encountered while boarding the would-be blockade runner the Mavi Marmara.

Nine Turks, some of whom were apparently not among those actively resisting with pipes, knives, or slingshots, apparently died during the melee; killed by by the discharge of traditional and or specialty, and supposedly non-lethal, “bean-bag” style rounds.

None were killed by the paintball hits as far as I can tell.

Therefore: Buzz. Two strikes, and the New Zealand Neurotic’s out.

Just another bit of evidence as why the lefty kind are forced always to insinuate, rather than argue. They are just to flighty and emotional to argue effectively.

So this is the view that some tyrant might refer to a “mush”. This tyrant is not you, DNW, and not Eric, or is it?

The only “Tyrant” is you and your ilk. DNW is a libertarian. That means he favors a political and legal system where citizens leave each other alone. He has no claims he wants to make on you or anyone else.

In contrast, it is you and your ideological ilk who want to force others to bend to your will. You want to coerce us into paying higher taxes, accepting more government regulation, giving up our means of self-defense, restricting our freedom of speech, and so on.

By eliminating objective values, you want to put in place a system where you and your ilk can redefine reality in a manner which is entirely self-serving. A manner which serves your true interests, the pursuit of ever more political power.

They make themselves obnoxious, and then while running full tilt toward a brick wall, expect you to interpose yourself between them the natural consequences of their behavior. As if there were some reason to take an interest.

I think you’re missing the point. From our perspective, their ideology makes no sense. They openyly declare they have no absolutes, which means they basically believe in mush, in nonsense. But that’s not true. When a left wing organism like Perry states he does not believe in absolutes, what he really means is he rejects OUR absolutes. And his goal is to get us to reject belief in our absolutes, too. Because them we will be forced to accept his very real, but never openly stated, absolutes, absolutes like higher taxes and bigger government, the disarming of the citizenry, and so forth.

I think where you and I differ is on the ultimate goal of these left wing organisms. You seem to think that their goal is self-destrustion (Ayn Rand made this assumption, too) and that we must resist their desire to take us along with them. I think it is quite different. I have asserted for some time that the ultimate goal of the left winger is POWER. If you accept this premise, then all of their stated assertions make perfect sense …

I probably agree more than you imagine from what you have taken away from your reading.

Yet I do think that history has shown that when they try to establish their termite kingdoms without the life energies of men to draw upon, their kingdoms tend to fail of their own accord.

Where we disagree, is probably not so much as to what they are doing politically, or even in broad terms as to “why”, nor even as to their ultimate goal: totalizing domination. But rather, in what proportions their actions are motivated by either:

1. a deeply convinced nihilism that directs itself toward nothing but appetite satisfaction and the pursuit of control and power nominally in aid of a temporary if self-justifying artistic-like creation of meaning in what is ultimately void, on the one hand; and

2. A cynically deployed if less deeply felt nihilism, which for the purpose of self-aggrandizement is nonetheless used as a kind of acid they throw at those credulous “moderate realist” rubes who don’t get that “science” tells us that nothing is real till we create it, and we can do anything we want to anyone we want in the name of progress. They, being the arbiters of what constitutes progress, and who get done to, of course.

My view as per “1″ is that there is a core of genuine nihilists as the driving force here, aiming for a directively evolved post human future of some kind. Say 15/85 in very rough percentages. And with only a fraction of the 15% being philosophically consistent or truly informed. But they are the ones issuing the guiding manifestos and creating the dogmas. Ultimately they too are incoherent, but at a somewhat deeper level.

I take it your view is that they are by and large and almost without exception, as per “2″ more petty, shortsighted, conniving, and cynical, than that. That their nihilism is almost incidental or generated out of their power and appetite aims.

I think that we both agree that their declared anti-realism leaves them without grounds for making coherent objective claims; moral or otherwise.

I think that we both agree that they must know this, yet they cynically and deceptively and persistently try to frame their arguments in terms which they themselves don’t believe in, in order to coax concessions out of the more sincere.

I think we probably both agree that whether they are convinced nihilists or just uncaring opportunists deploying pseudo-scientific conclusions to attack the boundaries of objective reality, and hence the moral will of anyone else to resist, they are pernicious and destructive.

The question is, how much practical difference is there between descriptions 1 and 2?

“By eliminating objective values, you want to put in place a system where you and your ilk can redefine reality in a manner which is entirely self-serving. A manner which serves your true interests, the pursuit of ever more political power.”

Nicely stated. I don’t think that Perry would even deny it up to the point of the word “is”.

There is no point in resting as you have not yet made a case about reality. You are not even constructing arguments: just reiterating your denials like some broken record. Perhaps you don’t even believe that within your nominalist unreality life-world, arguing by deducing a conclusion even makes sense.

It might have cleared some matters up. Shown for example whether there was some mere verbal misunderstanding, or whether you were really crazy after all.

Instead of addressing the issue as to what “reality” you thought you were engaging as a scientist and teacher, you fled from these questions in a cloud of insinuated accusations, stating that the mere posing of such questions was somehow dictatorial in its framing. You eventually threw out instead some stale high school level verbiage about the scientific method in a futile hope of papering over your failure.

There’s apparently no reasoning with you, as you do not even – or so your statements imply – believe in the objective reality of your own major and minor premisses.

The only “Tyrant” is you and your ilk. DNW is a libertarian. That means he favors a political and legal system where citizens leave each other alone. He has no claims he wants to make on you or anyone else.

In contrast, it is you and your ideological ilk who want to force others to bend to your will. You want to coerce us into paying higher taxes, accepting more government regulation, giving up our means of self-defense, restricting our freedom of speech, and so on.

By eliminating objective values, you want to put in place a system where you and your ilk can redefine reality in a manner which is entirely self-serving. A manner which serves your true interests, the pursuit of ever more political power.

Fortunately, we are not stupid enough to fall for this gambit.

But you are stupid, Eric, because the opposite is true:

Otherwise, how do you explain the right-wing politically favoring the movement of wealth to the top 1%? That’s power!

Or defining a corporation as a person? That’s power!

Or to demand that a woman be subjected to a trans-vaginal examination when there is no medical need for it? That’s power!

Or prohibiting same-sex marriage? That’s power!

Or assigning personhood to a fetus? That’s power!

Or insisting on Christian prayer in schools and government functions? That’s power!

Or waging war on sovereign nations which have not attacked us? That’s power!

Or how about voter suppression? That’s power!

How about indiscriminate use of the filibuster? That’s power!

Thus you are lying, Eric, totally! Where is your “objective truth” regarding these your lies?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg!!!

PS: And I might add, that such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment, Aid to Dependent Children, these programs were legitimately made into law by a majority of the representatives of the American people. If you don’t like them, elect a majority to Congress and defeat these programs. You know what? You cannot do it, because the American people understand the need for each and every one of these programs, given the nature of our context here in America. Moreover, all other developed countries have similar programs, so you wingnuts are minority organisms! Your values have convinced very few people worldwide!

Is the “reality” you purport to engage as a scientist, public and found outside yourself; is it inter-subjectively accessible? Of course. I note that your libertarian values are and have been in the vast minority for many years.

Do you take these so-called realities as necessarily existing for any person other than for, or to, your particular self? It is up to the choice of each individual, as I have said many times. Within each resides objective truths. Objective truths cannot be imposed, except by the exertion of police powers. However, a democratic consensus can make laws based on said objective truths, which then can result in said police powers, in which case the individual has a choice to obey or not to obey, after which he may be punished if disobedient.

Do you engage in your “science” practices with any purpose in mind related to actually understanding, and further, in describing, the phenomena you address? Of course!

If so, to whom do you intend to describe these “subjective truth” phenomena? Is there anyone at all? If so, can these phenomena be described to these targeted others in such a way that you have some confidence from their behavior that they grasp what it is you are attempting to convey? The goal of science is learn about cause and effect relationships in nature by using scientific methodology. Of course, results are communicated to peers and other interested folks.

If so, are the results of your operations in principle repeatable by any other disinterested operator with the same skill set working while not in your presence? Repeatability of results is the ultimate test of their acceptance.

Do you then claim to have obtained knowledge or experiences or abilities through your activities which any others can in principle – with sufficient instruction – obtain, and experience, and exercise? Yes.

These questions are elementary to a scientist, or even a lay person, which makes me wonder why you would even ask them.

Is the “reality” you purport to engage as a scientist, public and found outside yourself; is it inter-subjectively accessible? Of course. I note that your libertarian values are and have been in the vast minority for many years.

Do you take these so-called realities as necessarily existing for any person other than for, or to, your particular self? It is up to the choice of each individual, as I have said many times. Within each resides objective truths. Objective truths cannot be imposed, except by the exertion of police powers. However, a democratic consensus can make laws based on said objective truths, which then can result in said police powers, in which case the individual has a choice to obey or not to obey, after which he may be punished if disobedient.

Do you engage in your “science” practices with any purpose in mind related to actually understanding, and further, in describing, the phenomena you address? Of course!

If so, to whom do you intend to describe these “subjective truth” phenomena? Is there anyone at all? If so, can these phenomena be described to these targeted others in such a way that you have some confidence from their behavior that they grasp what it is you are attempting to convey? The goal of science is learn about cause and effect relationships in nature by using scientific methodology. Of course, results are communicated to peers and other interested folks.

If so, are the results of your operations in principle repeatable by any other disinterested operator with the same skill set working while not in your presence? Repeatability of results is the ultimate test of their acceptance.

Do you then claim to have obtained knowledge or experiences or abilities through your activities which any others can in principle – with sufficient instruction – obtain, and experience, and exercise? Yes.

These questions are elementary to a scientist, or even a lay person, which makes me wonder why you would even ask them.

Because you claim not to believe in an objective reality, one wonders what it is that you imagine you are researching and teaching.

here’s apparently no reasoning with you, as you do not even – or so your statements imply – believe in the objective reality of your own major and minor premisses.

Who the fuck do you think you are even talking to … yourself?

DNW, why should one even bother communicating with you?”

“One”? Or do you really mean an autistic moron like yourself? For you, no reason.

For those unlike you, who acknowledge a reality which exists independently of their awareness of it, <strong>communication</strong> with others inhabiting that same objective reality is theoretically possible. But in your case and given your beliefs about reality existing only as a subjective state of mind, the very idea of your genuinely communicating with anyone becomes absurd, since to do so presuppose an objective reality outside of your head which is objectively and independently there to be engaged.

No wonder you are such a nut case. All that pent-up emotion, and no reality for it to apply to ultimately other than the circular track inside your skull.

Perry, you did not address a single thing that I said. Here’s my statement again:

The only “Tyrant” is you and your ilk. DNW is a libertarian. That means he favors a political and legal system where citizens leave each other alone. He has no claims he wants to make on you or anyone else.

In contrast, it is you and your ideological ilk who want to force others to bend to your will. You want to coerce us into paying higher taxes, accepting more government regulation, giving up our means of self-defense, restricting our freedom of speech, and so on.

By eliminating objective values, you want to put in place a system where you and your ilk can redefine reality in a manner which is entirely self-serving. A manner which serves your true interests, the pursuit of ever more political power.

Fortunately, we are not stupid enough to fall for this gambit.

There. Everything I said above is true, which is why you totally ignored it. And will continue to ignore it, I daresay, if your past performance is any guide. It’s no wonder DNW ties you up in knots. When one party believes in objective facts, reason, and logic and the other (you) believes in nothing but mush, it’s pretty obvious which party will consistently win in debate.

I mean, really, Perry! You claim to have once been a teacher, what in God’s name did you teach them? That reality is whatever they say it is? That they can make up any answer they want on a test and you will grade them “Correct” because it was true for them? Even you couldn’t be that stupid or that crazy, never mind it is exactly this sort of approach to knowledge that you have been advocating here.

Otherwise, how do you explain the right-wing politically favoring the movement of wealth to the top 1%? That’s power!

No, dumbshit, it’s called freedom. Economic freedom. If Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey earn an extra $billion this year, this affects your rights as a US citizen, how, exactly?

Only a Marxist moron would be stupid enough to equate mere wealth with political power. Wealth is harmless. Indeed, wealth is good, because rich people buy things which creates lots of jobs. All the wealth in the world can’t threaten your basic rights, only political power can do that. And it is you and your ideological ilk that seeks ever more and more political power, not us.

Was assigning personhood to former black slaves “Power”? Or was it simply recognizing that all human beings have certain inherent rights?

You really don’t get it, do you, Perry? Your version of political power is to ever more restrict our rights as citizens through higher taxes, more government, gun control, etc. To the extent we want to use political power, it’s to expand our basic rights and freedoms.

PS: And I might add, that such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment, Aid to Dependent Children, these programs were legitimately made into law by a majority of the representatives of the American people.

Well, I’m sure you’ve heard the old joke of democracy being two lions and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner.

On a similar but more serious note, I’m sure you’ve also heard the quote from a famous Scotsman from about two centuries ago who asserted that democracy could only last until the citizenry discovered they could vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

Which is where we are now. Obama no longer even pretends to care about the massive deficits we are running. He is simply distributing free stuff without even having the balls to demand that the middle class and the poor help pay for it all, which is what would have happened if all the Bush tax cuts had been allowed to expire.

What’s happening is your whole phony house of cards is starting to collapse. As Lady Thatcher aptly observed – The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s money. Unfortunately, it will probably fall on president Palin or president Christie or Jindal or Rubio to start the unpleasant job of cleaning up the mess that you left wing ideologues have made of this country.

Where we disagree, is probably not so much as to what they are doing politically, or even in broad terms as to “why”, nor even as to their ultimate goal: totalizing domination. But rather, in what proportions their actions are motivated by either:

1. a deeply convinced nihilism that directs itself toward nothing but appetite satisfaction and the pursuit of control and power nominally in aid of a temporary if self-justifying artistic-like creation of meaning in what is ultimately void, on the one hand; and

2. A cynically deployed if less deeply felt nihilism, which for the purpose of self-aggrandizement is nonetheless used as a kind of acid they throw at those credulous “moderate realist” rubes who don’t get that “science” tells us that nothing is real till we create it, and we can do anything we want to anyone we want in the name of progress. They, being the arbiters of what constitutes progress, and who get done to, of course.

An astute observation, though my own sense is that, to “Understand” these left wingers (to the extent it is worth the effort) you pretty much have to go back to Marx. Marx may not be everything to the current left wing movement, but he plays a role similar to that of Mohammed in Islam.

What I think happened was this: Marx hit upon what was basically the perfect secular recipe for attaining absolute political power. In an era (the mid-19th century) when notions of democracy and human rights were beginning to spread, Marx figured out that a naked power grab of the type exercised by, say, the Roman Caesars, would no longer do. But if you could claim that your power grab was in the service of some moral ideal that no one could dispute, then there was no end to the amount of power you could seize. All you had to do was say you were doing it “For the people” or “For the workers” or “For the peasants” and no one could oppose you. Of course, their claimed devotion to these “Ideals” was one big, fat lie, but who cared as long as the lie worked?

So what I’m basically saying is that, to understand the modern left winger, you have to understand Marx. That he was the most evil human being to walk the planet is hard to dispute, but he was also one of the most diabolically clever as well. And, while “Official” Marxism is largely dead, the more watered down version, which we see in the likes of Obama, is, unfortunately, still very much alive and kicking.

To my query of DNW: “DNW, why should one even bother communicating with you?”, he offers his carefully considered reply:

“One”? Or do you really mean an autistic moron like yourself? For you, no reason.

Looks like our ostensibly erudite one is really getting frustrated.

I’m beginning to conclude that your high sounding rhetoric emanates from a partial vacuum, DNW!

I said: These questions are elementary to a scientist, or even a lay person, which makes me wonder why you would even ask them.

DNW replies: Because you claim not to believe in an objective reality, one wonders what it is that you imagine you are researching and teaching.

No scientist would ever make a statement like this, DNW. In science, you are out of your realm, perhaps in philosophy as well, you know, confused.

Consider this:

Scientific objectivity means that independent observers, using the same procedures, will come to consensus.

This is another way to view the “scientific method”. Said consensus can be viewed as an objective reality, but is subject to question by a skeptic thereof, who then either repeats the procedure one more time to test the claimed result, and/or devises a new procedure to test the established theory, all done in pursuit of the objective truth/reality, which is perhaps approached but never actually achieved.

Not being conversant in philosophy, I nevertheless would expect that the very same process has been followed over time, and evolved over time, producing different results over time, subject to further study and review by scholars and skeptics, forever.

Thus, objective reality/truth exists in the mind of an individual, is subject to a consensus of agreement, but is always subject to further questioning by current skeptics who may devise a new theory.

Your idea that there exists an objective reality/truth which is independent of the minds of all people is nothing more than an hypothesis which can never be proven, but the concept of which certainly can and will be tested and refined over time. It can also be corrupted by political control freaks. Take the Christian God as an example!

An astute observation, though my own sense is that, to “Understand” these left wingers (to the extent it is worth the effort) you pretty much have to go back to Marx. Marx may not be everything to the current left wing movement, but he plays a role similar to that of Mohammed in Islam.

Citation please!

For a person who yesterday stated that it is now worth having a conversation, you have gone on like a chicken whose head was cut off. And from the garbage you write, I’m pretty sure it has been cut off, literally!!!

—-
Thanks To Gerrymandering, Democrats Would Need To Win The Popular Vote By Over 7 Percent To Take Back The House

As of this writing, every single state except Hawai’i has finalized its vote totals for the 2012 House elections, and Democrats currently lead Republicans by 1,362,351 votes in the overall popular vote total. Democratic House candidates earned 49.15 percent of the popular vote, while Republicans earned only 48.03 percent — meaning that the American people preferred a unified Democratic Congress over the divided Congress it actually got by more than a full percentage point. Nevertheless, thanks largely to partisan gerrymandering, Republicans have a solid House majority in the incoming 113th Congress.

A deeper dive into the vote totals reveals just how firmly gerrymandering entrenched Republican control of the House. If all House members are ranked in order from the Republican members who won by the widest margin down to the Democratic members who won by the widest margins, the 218th member on this list is Congressman-elect Robert Pittenger (R-NC). Thus, Pittenger was the “turning point” member of the incoming House. If every Republican who performed as well or worse than Pittenger had lost their race, Democrats would hold a one vote majority in the incoming House.

Pittenger won his race by more than six percentage points — 51.78 percent to 45.65 percent.

The upshot of this is that if Democrats across the country had performed six percentage points better than they actually did last November, they still would have barely missed capturing a majority in the House of Representatives. In order to take control of the House, Democrats would have needed to win the 2012 election by 7.25 percentage points. That’s significantly more than the Republican margin of victory in the 2010 GOP wave election (6.6 percent), and only slightly less than the margin of victory in the 2006 Democratic wave election (7.9 percent). If Democrats had won in 2012 by the same commanding 7.9 percent margin they achieved in 2006, they would still only have a bare 220-215 seat majority in the incoming House, assuming that these additional votes were distributed evenly throughout the country. That’s how powerful the GOP’s gerrymandered maps are; Democrats can win a Congressional election by nearly 8 points and still barely capture the House.
—-

That seven points difference is crucial in the US electoral environment – what it means is that the GOP has successfully subverted democratic representation in the US for the foreseeable future.

That seven points difference is crucial in the US electoral environment – what it means is that the GOP has successfully subverted democratic representation in the US for the foreseeable future.

Dana must be so happy.

Exactly, PiatoR! Dana and his ilk don’t give a good damn about democratic principles, they care only about power, and using the big government they claim to oppose. And gerrymandering is just one more version version of voter suppression. And the worse Republican hypocrisy of all, is that these plutocrats have the nerve to try to sell “democracy” around the globe, even if it means going to war over the issue, like in Vietnam, like in Iraq. They are indeed a sick bunch!

I said: These questions are elementary to a scientist, or even a lay person, which makes me wonder why you would even ask them.

DNW replies: Because you claim not to believe in an objective reality, one wonders what it is that you imagine you are researching and teaching.

No scientist would ever make a statement like this, DNW. In science, you are out of your realm, perhaps in philosophy as well, you know, confused.

Consider this:

Scientific objectivity means that independent observers, using the same procedures, will come to consensus.

This is another way to view the “scientific method”. Said consensus can be viewed as an objective reality, but is subject to question by a skeptic thereof, who then either repeats the procedure one more time to test the claimed result, and/or devises a new procedure to test the established theory, all done in pursuit of the objective truth/reality, which is perhaps approached but never actually achieved.

Not being conversant in philosophy, …

You don’t seem to be conversant with logic and the rules of inference either, or you would realize you are begging the question.

As for your supposed grasp of the application of “another way” to approach the subject matter of the “scientific method”, that grasp seems to be conditioned by the fact that you cannot even bring yourself to say what the subject matter of your supposedly scientific investigation is.

What do you imagine that you are doing: Subjectively testing subjective hypotheses in order to reach a subjective consensus? Concerning what, some private but consensual hermeneutic of test apparatus? What does the consensus represent? An external state of affairs or congeries of recirculating subjective alignments? And do they “objectively” exist?

The very word “objective” frightens you so much you are psychologically compelled to talk all around the very “object” of your supposed inquiry; lest, you be forced to admit that it stands there apart from and independent of your godlet-like creative gaze.

You’re trapped between the vibrating walls of behaviorism and a radical subjectivity tantamount to a subjective idealism. I guess your dilemma is caused by the fact that you obviously wish to somehow preserve the notion that you have a mind, or are a “you” on the one hand, and bare operational premises implying nothing categorical about who or what is operating or being operated upon, on the other.

Recall too that I did not ask you what “scientific objectivity” was. I asked you what the subject matter of your inquiry was and what you thought you were teaching.

Presumably there is some object-pole to your inquiry?

In evading that question you merely wound up the victim of your own vicious circularity.

Now, as for your use of a method of “consensus” quote, as opposed to one employing more traditional terms such as repeatability, or “replication of result”, you might want to cite your authority for that particular text. As I’m familiar with a fair amount of literature on the scientific method and the philosophy of science, as well as the claims of a number of particular schools of empiricist thought, I’m curious as to the source and context of the fragment you’ve chosen to present.

Exactly, PiatoR! Dana and his ilk don’t give a good damn about democratic principles, they care only about power

Gee, Perry, project much? Whose political ideology demands ever more political power, higher taxes, bigger government, more gun control and more restrictions on free speech? I don’t think it’s ours, although it does sound an awful lot like yours.

And the worse Republican hypocrisy of all, is that these plutocrats have the nerve to try to sell “democracy” around the globe, even if it means going to war over the issue, like in Vietnam, like in Iraq.

Says the one who doesn’t know a damned thing about either Vietnam or Iraq.

For a person who yesterday stated that it is now worth having a conversation, you have gone on like a chicken whose head was cut off. And from the garbage you write, I’m pretty sure it has been cut off, literally!!!

You have said nothing worthy of a response!

And yet you responded anyway.

Speaking of “Chickens”, you have, as usual, engaged in your typical cowardly dodge. Rather than actually address the substance of my comments, you try to just dismiss them with some snide comment.

Why do you do this? Obvious. You just are not a very skilled debater. Like I said, when one side believes in objective facts, truth, reason, and logic and the other believes in subjective, relativistic mush, it’s pretty clear who will win.

Thus, objective reality/truth exists in the mind of an individual, is subject to a consensus of agreement

Where do you get this bullshit? I mean, seriously? Did you just make it up out of thin air, or did someone teach it to you?

I mean, even the dumbest of morons (Pho, for example) could tell you that reality snd human consensus have nothing to do with each other. For example, for thousands of years the “Consensus” was that the Earth was flat. The consesus was wrong. The Earth is round regardless of whether every single human on the planet believed otherwise. For thousands of years the consensus was the Sun and planets orbited the Earth. Again, the consensus was wrong. And, on a moral level, for thousands of years the consensus was that slavery was morally acceptable. in reality, slavery was always morally wrong.

You see, there is an objective reality out there that exists entirely independent of us humans. If every single human died tomorrow, the Earth would still be here. Ditto the Sun and the stars and the Moon. The notion that you need a “Consensus” for these bodies to exist is simply laughable.

Your idea that there exists an objective reality/truth which is independent of the minds of all people is nothing more than an hypothesis which can never be proven

More jabberwocky. Your problem, I think, is you are confusing science and ideology. The statement you made above is an ideological statement, not a scientific one.

Any scientist worthy of the name (which apparently excludes you) knows that, without an objective reality, science itself cannot exist.

Oh, and speaking of objective reality, you never did answer this question I raised earlier:

I mean, really, Perry! You claim to have once been a teacher, what in God’s name did you teach them? That reality is whatever they say it is? That they can make up any answer they want on a test and you will grade them “Correct” because it was true for them? Even you couldn’t be that stupid or that crazy, never mind it is exactly this sort of approach to knowledge that you have been advocating here.

Your idea that there exists an objective reality/truth which is independent of the minds of all people is nothing more than an hypothesis which can never be proven

More jabberwocky. Your problem, I think, is you are confusing science and ideology. The statement you made above is an ideological statement, not a scientific one. “

Specifically:

“you are confusing science and ideology.”

That’s an astute observation and a highly relevant one. [I know because I was going to say much the same thing myself, (hahaha). But I figured Perry would try evasively arguing that, rather than focus on answering the question as to what he thought it was that he was doing science on.]

But since it’s been shown that he fears to say what it is that he applies his scientific methods to, or teaches to his students, and probably always will …

“you are confusing science and ideology.”

Yeah, so parsed it goes like this. He has in the name of an ideology, which he uses for the sake of some private aim, adopted a metaphysical view of what constitutes or does not constitute reality. He’s done this independent of or apart from his engagement in the scientific process.

Perry’s metaphysics is in fact as much dependent on a proper interpretation of the scientific method as Marx’s anti-metaphysical metaphysics was on the data he presented in Das Capital. Namely, not at all.

Marx had already embraced a stridently materialistic and relativistic worldview before leaving the university (Cite his thesis). He just used his “economic researches” as prodigious filler material while he developed and refined and expanded those earlier predicates and views.

Perry’s subjective-absolute gibberish, does not result from the practice of science, but is embraced apart from it; after which the real subject and product and practice of science is laid upon Perry’s Procrustean metaphysical bed, while he chops its head and legs off to fit.

Even on the most trivial and mundane interpretation of what he has been doing to occupy his time, Perry’s claims regarding knowledge are refuted. This leaves him unable, (for what three days now?) to even say what it is he was teaching (public facts? his subjective impressions?) his students, or what it was that formed the subject matter of his scientific investigations.

If Perry simply believed that investigational and experimental results were always conditional, or contingent, or relative to some particular context or method, and were therefore subject to subsequent modification or re-description, that belief would merely lead to a kind of epistemological modesty and humility. As in, “oh I forgot to stipulate that you have to use a Hewlett-Packard spectrograph in an argon gas filled chamber at so many bars”.

Instead, his metaphysics leads to a political totalitarianism whitewashed over with a thin coat of some mealy-mouthed bunkum about consensus.

“Consensus”? In a universe centered on the subjective, what possible conditioning status has “consensus”?

The very word “objective” frightens you so much you are psychologically compelled to talk all around the very “object” of your supposed inquiry; lest, you be forced to admit that it stands there apart from and independent of your godlet-like creative gaze.

What’s interesting is whether Perry actually believes his subjectivist/relativist nonsense, or whether it’s just a clever, self-serving lie to try to undermine our belief in absolutes and an objective reality.

For example, in the realm of morals, it is very much in the left wing organism’s interest to declare that there are no moral absolutes. Not that the left winger necessarily believes this himself, but if he can spread this lie well enough and convince the general public that it’s true, then he has effectively disarmed morally anyone who would stand in his way (meaning – conservatives and libertarians). If all morals are relative, then we are denied any objective standards with which to judge them. Of course, the left wing organism really doesn’t believe that morals are relative, this is, as indicated above, just a self-serving lie. They do believe that their collectivist “Morals” are superior. Thus it is morally laudable for them to use the tax code to steal from the rich, to promote abortion at any level and for any reason, to coddle foreign dictators and tyrants, and so forth.

Of course, even this may be false. Indeed, I am probably mistaken in asuming the left winger believes in any moral code at all other than the usurpation of ever more political power. Thus when the left wing organism asserts that it is morally good to steal from the rich to give to the poor, that is probably a lie, too. And, like all left wing lies, it is self-serving in nature. All that matters to the left winger, ultimately, is the goal of ever more political power. The left winger, ultimately, wants to be Big Brother, but if he can’t be Big Brother, he will settle for being O’Brien.

Eric said: “Thus when the left wing organism asserts that it is morally good to steal from the rich to give to the poor, that is probably a lie, too. And, like all left wing lies, it is self-serving in nature.”

Another home run for Eric!

Let’s see…. these are quesstimates but….John Kerry/net worth 2 BILLION, George Soros/net worth 20 BILLION, Warren Buffet/net worth 60 BILLION, Opra/ net worth 10 BILLION, Bill Mahar/net worth 250 MILLION,. Now I could make a list a thousand liberals long and at the end add Obama/net worth 20 Million. But those on the left and Wagonwheel, think going after the small businessman and his wife at 250 GRAND or a doctor and his at 450 Grand is “making the rich pay their fair share”. Self serving indeed they are hypocrites of the first order. They tax workers income NOT their own ill-begoten wealth.

Even our own Editor has a link to pay more taxes….how many times has any of those guys clicked it? Or for that matter, Wagonwheel?

P.S. How about ALGORE selling Current to avoid higher taxes in 2013? Or Jeff Emelt NOT PAYING CORPORATE taxes? Hummmmmm?

Therein lies the proof of the pudding. The rich paying “their fair share” has nothing at all to do with it. Punishing those among us who work hard and create and produce real market value wealth is the one and only goal. Either that or they’d start by taxing themselves!

And gerrymandering is just one more version version of voter suppression

No, it’s important to get the terminology right. Gerrymandering is not voter suppression – it’s a means of voter nullification.

Let’s take an analogy – let us suppose that China announced it was going to switch to full and free democratic elections for its legislative body. And the majority wanted the Communist Party out.

However, due to some rationale like “false consciousness from capitalist propaganda”, there would be an automatic 7% of the electorate deemed to vote for the Communist Party, before the other votes were counted. And, strangely enough, the makeup of the electorate were stable enough that that 7% meant the Communist Party would stay in power for the foreseeable future.

No rationale observer would call that a fair democracy. Any apologist for the Communist Party spouting the line about “false consciousness from capitalist propaganda” would be seen for what they were – an anti-democratic shill trying to justify one party minority rule.

The US is in that situation. It is a sham democracy. The GOP have gerrymandered themselves into a commanding position in Congress despite the majority wanting them out.

And the wingnuts here are anti-democratic shills, loudly wrapping themselves in the flag while they work against American ideals.

The US Founding Fathers expressed nothing but contempt for Britain’s “rotten boroughs”. You have to wonder what their opinion would be of an American political power who built their role on promoting rotten boroughs on an industrial scale.

Like you actually know anything about a country you don’t live in, Phoenician. Where is your evidence for the majority wanting them out? If you actually lived here, you’d know this country is at best a centrist nation. Opinions are usually split down the middle. A lot of people lean conservative or libertarian. But of course because you’re a know-it-all foreigner you think you “know better” than Americans do and have to lecture us about how “enlightened” you are than the rest of us.

The US is in that situation. It is a sham democracy. The GOP have gerrymandered themselves into a commanding position in Congress despite the majority wanting them out.

Sure, Pho. More whining from the losers, much like Perry’s insistence that Bush “Stole” the election of 2004.

I mean, really! Where were the Democrats in all this? They run at least half of this country, yet somehow we are to believe that Republicans, and Republicans only, managed to game the system to their own advantage? That Democrats don’t play this game, too?

It’s all wishful thinking. You left wingers don’t want to believe that tens of millions of Americans have rejected your ideology, but the truth is – tens of millions of Americans have rejected your ideology.

Eric, Gerrymandering has been around since the eaarly 1800′s. It was invented by Democracts, BTW. It’s used and abused by both sides so it an equal opportunity fix. I recall it being used to make sure there were certain districts that would always be black, or hispanic. But I figure when used by Democrats it’s voter enhancement, but by Republicans voter suppression.

Indeed, I am probably mistaken in asuming the left winger believes in any moral code at all other than the usurpation of ever more political power. Thus when the left wing organism asserts that it is morally good to steal from the rich to give to the poor, that is probably a lie, too. And, like all left wing lies, it is self-serving in nature. All that matters to the left winger, ultimately, is the goal of ever more political power.

Yes, Hoagie, you are mistaken, grossly mistaken. You and your tribe, most of whom purport to be Christians, have lost the values which your religion teaches and which Jesus Christ has modeled.

You have replaced sharing with greed, such that you accuse the “left organism” of stealing from the producers, when you should be focused on sharing. It is even to the point where such as Eric will label the sharing value as being Marxist, you too, in your attempts to justify your greed. And finally, bear in mind that even the so-called lowliest of occupations, like the trash collectors or the street sweepers, are folks who are producing, without which we would all suffer all the more.

But you right-winger Christian believing “organisms” somehow forget what you have been taught, out of arrogance and greed!

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. (1 Timothy 6:9-11)

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” (Luke 3:10-11)

Let’s get one thing straight. The United States is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. Democracy is little more than mob rule. At it’s best. Again, democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what’s for dinner.

But a constitutional republic is only as good as the people who run it, and that would be us. If we refuse to go by the rule of law, that is if we make ends runs around the Constitution, avoid it, bend it, ignore it, make exceptions to it or interpret it then it becomes moot. As a Republican I have litte time for most of the ideas the Democrats have, and I have zero time for the ideas the radical left Democrats have. But as an American I believe they have the same right to hold those beliefs as I do mine.

But if we are not all on the same page, that is the page of doing what we believe is best for all Americans, black, white, rich or poor, then we are betraying the fundamental idea of the Constitution and that of Freedom itself.

When I see major cities in this country run by one party for decades, gerrimandered if you will, steeped in drugs, illigitimacy, crime, corruption, poor if any education, all the while one party holds a death grip on those cities I have to ask; Is this really what the Republic should look like?

When that woman asked Ben Franklin “What form of Government have you given us, Dr. Franklin?” and he responded; “A Republic, If you can keep it”, I wonder if he could actually see the future. When large groups of people decide the Constitution does not apply to this or that, then we end up in civil war. Just as when large groups of people believe it’s okay to target this group or that group to achieve some nebulus goal or another, they are not respecting the Liberty of all of us, only some of us, usually those who agree with them. They have become the two wolves. That’s why we have a Constitution.

Wagonwheel responded:
“Yes, Hoagie, you are mistaken, grossly mistaken. You and your tribe, most of whom purport to be Christians, have lost the values which your religion teaches and which Jesus Christ has modeled.”

Good job but I did not write the paragraph you responded to. Therefore, I am not mistaken, I belong to no “tribe” ( I’m not an Indian ), I don’t “perport” to be a Christian I am one, and I certainly don’t need an agnostic to teach me Christ.

Similarly, it is you who have replaced sharing with greed, since sharing require YOU to share, not me. You have cloaked your greed band theft of other people’s property in a veil of self-importance and compassion. I “share” with whom I choose, not who you choose. Get it? And if you bwould like to be “focused on sharing” then go ahead and share your wealth, who’s stopping you? But you have no right legally or morally to share mine.

“And finally, bear in mind that even the so-called lowliest of occupations, like the trash collectors or the street sweepers, are folks who are producing, without which we would all suffer all the more.”

Who said they weren’t producing? And “suffer all the more”? Are you, they, we suffering? Again your emotionalism is astounding.

“But you right-winger Christian believing “organisms” somehow forget what you have been taught, out of arrogance and greed!”

“Arrogance and Greed”? Who is more arrogant and greedy, you who believes he has the right to steal another persons property and give it to someone else or I who believes each person is responsable for their own generosity? If I take your money from your bank account am I generous, or am I just a fuckin’ thief?

Next time, make sure the person you’re bitchin’ to is the one who made the comment.

“Consensus”? In a universe centered on the subjective, what possible conditioning status has “consensus”?

Which is the critical question and exactly my point, that there is no such a thing as consensus regarding your use of the term “objective reality” or “objective truth”. The concept exists only in the mind of any particular individual, and is not necessarily accepted by consensus, except by those tyrants, like yourself, who attempt to use one’s semantic erudition in an attempt to make an unprovable assertion.

PS: And yes, I continue to assert that the scientific method is applicable and universally used in any investigative effort, in the discipline, for example, science, or philosophy, or even in …, pedagogically speaking. The scientific method replicates the workings of the mind when in the investigation mode, which might actually be always, probably is. Now there is an objective truth for ya (Just kidding!).

Good job but I did not write the paragraph you responded to. Therefore, I am not mistaken, I belong to no “tribe” ( I’m not an Indian ), I don’t “perport” to be a Christian I am one, and I certainly don’t need an agnostic to teach me Christ.

But you are mistaken, and yes, you do need an agnostic to teach you Christ, for you have strayed, hugely! I used quotations from YOUR Bible, Hoagie. That somehow does not count, eh? How is it you would even think to criticize YOUR Bible? Therefore, you’ve just demonstrated yourself to be a faux Christian.

Here again is my piece, with the proper lead by my friend Hoagie:

Therein lies the proof of the pudding. The rich paying “their fair share” has nothing at all to do with it. Punishing those among us who work hard and create and produce real market value wealth is the one and only goal. Either that or they’d start by taxing themselves!

Yes, Hoagie, you are mistaken, grossly mistaken. You and your tribe, most of whom purport to be Christians, have lost the values which your religion teaches and which Jesus Christ has modeled.

You have replaced sharing with greed, such that you accuse the “left organism” of stealing from the producers, when you should be focused on sharing. It is even to the point where such as Eric will label the sharing value as being Marxist, you too, in your attempts to justify your greed. And finally, bear in mind that even the so-called lowliest of occupations, like the trash collectors or the street sweepers, are folks who are producing, without which we would all suffer all the more.

But you right-winger Christian believing “organisms” somehow forget what you have been taught, out of arrogance and greed!

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. (1 Timothy 6:9-11)

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” (Luke 3:10-11)

Ands since you’ve become such a student of Our Lord Jesus, when He said: “If your brother asks for your shirt, give him your coat, also.”, can you point out where He said when your brother asks for your shirt, give him sombody elses shirt and coat also”

Or how about:

“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”

So who “loves money” more? You who conspire to thake it from it’s rightful owners, or the owners of that money who resist your attempt to steal it?

Perhaps you should take heed Wagonwheel:
“But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.” Ahhh, Faith. Take the beam from your own eye, you are not Christ. You’ll notice He does not say to persue government, equality, social justice, redistribution or class warfare.

But you seem to think Christ said: “Whoever has two tunics is to share give one to the government and they shall decide and whoever has food is to do likewise.”

What Christ advocated was individual generosity and compassion, not theft bby government. Again, if I take money from your bank account and give it to the Red Cross it does not make me either compassionate nor generous. It makes me a thief and you a victim. Therefore, if you advocate the government stealing my money from my bank account to redistribute it to someone else it makes you neither compassionate nor generous. It makes you a thief in collusion with government and it makes the government a Tyranny. Not very Christ-like!

Let’s get one thing straight. The United States is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. Democracy is little more than mob rule. At it’s best. Again, democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what’s for dinner. Partly true, but our legislature, according to the Constitution, operates on democratic principles, like rule by majority. Unfortunately, this concept has been corrupted, but such as the filibuster, then overused by the current version of your Republican Party.

But a constitutional republic is only as good as the people who run it, and that would be us. If we refuse to go by the rule of law, that is if we make ends runs around the Constitution, avoid it, bend it, ignore it, make exceptions to it or interpret it then it becomes moot. As a Republican I have litte time for most of the ideas the Democrats have, and I have zero time for the ideas the radical left Democrats have. But as an American I believe they have the same right to hold those beliefs as I do mine. OK, that sounds like an American ideal to me. When will your Republican Party begin to operate with this ideal in mind? Is voter suppression of minorities “going by the rule of law”? I don’t think so!

But if we are not all on the same page, that is the page of doing what we believe is best for all Americans, black, white, rich or poor, then we are betraying the fundamental idea of the Constitution and that of Freedom itself. Sounds good, as long as Republicans understand that our Constitution is a living document with regard to applying it’s principles in today’s context.

When I see major cities in this country run by one party for decades, gerrimandered if you will, steeped in drugs, illigitimacy, crime, corruption, poor if any education, all the while one party holds a death grip on those cities I have to ask; Is this really what the Republic should look like? These conditions exist as an outcome of racial segregation emanating from centuries of slavery where these people were treated like farm animals. And these racist attitudes impact our culture to this very day. We have succeeded in making second class citizens of Americans trapped in our inner cities. Moreover, Republicans insist on thwarting still needed efforts to rectify this situation. Fortunately, improvement still occurs as more and more minorities manage to escape, but it is a slow process without additional effort, especially in the education arena; but Republicans want to dissolve the Department of Education. Explain that to me, Hoagie.

When that woman asked Ben Franklin “What form of Government have you given us, Dr. Franklin?” and he responded; “A Republic, If you can keep it”, I wonder if he could actually see the future. When large groups of people decide the Constitution does not apply to this or that, then we end up in civil war. Just as when large groups of people believe it’s okay to target this group or that group to achieve some nebulus goal or another, they are not respecting the Liberty of all of us, only some of us, usually those who agree with them. They have become the two wolves. That’s why we have a Constitution. Contrary to Conservative thinking, the Constitution must be considered to be a living document in the context of today, in order to be used in a meaningful manner.

Judge not Wagonwheel, lest you be judged. You may believe me to be a “faux Christian” but it’s better than a Fallen Christian. You seem ton think that because one is a Christian he must think himself perfect. No, not perfect just Forgiven. However, as bad a Christian as I am, I cannot and will not defend my Faith on Political grounds. You see Wagonwheel, my God Rules over my government. It seems your god is the government. So as a Christian, faux or no, I will not participate in your little attempt to politicize the words Christ spoke regarding what The Father wants from us, all of us, as humans in His image.

They used to say ” Patriotism is the last vestage of a scoundrel”. Perhaps we need to change that to “Quoting the Bible”.

What Christ advocated was individual generosity and compassion, not theft bby government. Again, if I take money from your bank account and give it to the Red Cross it does not make me either compassionate nor generous. It makes me a thief and you a victim. Therefore, if you advocate the government stealing my money from my bank account to redistribute it to someone else it makes you neither compassionate nor generous. It makes you a thief in collusion with government and it makes the government a Tyranny. Not very Christ-like!

I argue that the tyranny lies within a system which moves wealth from the middle and poor to the wealthy, which is precisely what has happened beginning in the 1970′s, amplified by Reaganism to this very day. This system has become not viable, and will lead to chaos then to revolution if we do not deal with it effectively.

Regarding defining what is Christ-like, your current political philosophy is anti-Christ-like, I would argue. I gave you some biblical, new testament quotations which you are now attempting to refute in support of the greed being continually implemented by the operating philosophy of your Party. This is not the America I understand that we should be, nor is it the Christian way to be, independent of your self-centered rationalizations, Hoagie.

As much as I’d like to continue, I must go shower. Today is Lunch at the Club. You remember, where we greedy, Christian, Republicans feed 60 poor people and give them food to take home. Where we have a nurse on hand to administer free flu shots, check for malnourishment and check the teeth of the kids.

Just so you know, the Club does this with our own money, don’t need no government. It’s our money, our time, our labor, our product and we give it freely. Yep, Wagonwheel, the elderly, the indigent and sometimes just the lonely who need someone to talk to. Today all the old “Lost and Found” stuff comes out so there should be a lot of good clothing to add more help in the cold weather.

We have three old curmuddgeons to do the work, all retired. One is a fat guy with bad legs, one a thin guy also with bad legs and me with COPD. But we get’er done. We cook, we serve, we clean then we sit down and drink a spell. Two Swedenborgians and a Lutheran. All faux Christians. BTW, what are you doing today?

And now we have the greatest rationalization of them all from our dear Hoagie:

Judge not Wagonwheel, lest you be judged. You may believe me to be a “faux Christian” but it’s better than a Fallen Christian. You seem ton think that because one is a Christian he must think himself perfect. No, not perfect just Forgiven. However, as bad a Christian as I am, I cannot and will not defend my Faith on Political grounds. You see Wagonwheel, my God Rules over my government. It seems your god is the government. So as a Christian, faux or no, I will not participate in your little attempt to politicize the words Christ spoke regarding what The Father wants from us, all of us, as humans in His image.

They used to say ” Patriotism is the last vestage of a scoundrel”. Perhaps we need to change that to “Quoting the Bible”.

You might want to wait a week or so then reread what you just wrote, Hoagie, because it is the rationalization of all rationalizations of which you might be ashamed in hindsight. You are casting aside the principles which you claim to believe in. This is what is known as a split personality, or self-deception, which is not healthy and leads to disorders such as alcoholism and drug addiction.

The idea that whatever you do you will be forgiven is a self-fulfilling prophecy which enables further sins to be committed. The Roman Catholic Church especially emphasizes this, to which I have always had a major concern. Instead of this, the emphasis ought to be on leading a better life (more holy life, as Catholics would say), in which concern for others is more important than concern for self.

I don’t see today’s Republican Party and Republicans embodying this Christian principle as their own, in fact, the opposite, in contrast to the Democratic Party which at least strives to embrace it.

As much as I’d like to continue, I must go shower. Today is Lunch at the Club. You remember, where we greedy, Christian, Republicans feed 60 poor people and give them food to take home. Where we have a nurse on hand to administer free flu shots, check for malnourishment and check the teeth of the kids.

Just so you know, the Club does this with our own money, don’t need no government. It’s our money, our time, our labor, our product and we give it freely. Yep, Wagonwheel, the elderly, the indigent and sometimes just the lonely who need someone to talk to. Today all the old “Lost and Found” stuff comes out so there should be a lot of good clothing to add more help in the cold weather.

We have three old curmuddgeons to do the work, all retired. One is a fat guy with bad legs, one a thin guy also with bad legs and me with COPD. But we get’er done. We cook, we serve, we clean then we sit down and drink a spell. Two Swedenborgians and a Lutheran. All faux Christians. BTW, what are you doing today?

This is commendable, Hoagie, but not nearly on the scale that is needed. A worthwhile function of government is to assist people in need, and to provide the tools to enable those who can to extricate themselves from poverty with education and hard work. Yet today’s Republicans seem to want to continue to abandon these people in need.

“Consensus”? In a universe centered on the subjective, what possible conditioning status has “consensus”?

Which is the critical question and exactly my point, that there is no such a thing as consensus regarding your use of the term “objective reality” or “objective truth”.

Well golly gee whiz Prof … do ya think there is even an objectively ascertainable consensus as to the meaning, the operation, the value, and the arbitrative function of the concept of “consensus” itself?

Or, as that must be absolutely subjective too, how could there be? And so, you know what’s your point in leaning on it for help in the first place?

The concept exists only in the mind of any particular individual, and is not necessarily accepted by consensus, except by those tyrants, like yourself, who attempt to use one’s semantic erudition in an attempt to make an unprovable assertion.

So science you grandly and approvingly declare, operates by means of some subjective-absolute consensus … (you refuse to cite your earlier quote on this matter) and objective reality therefore can only be said to exist to the extent or in such a manner that some imagined consensus among subjective-absolutists allows.

Yet, at the same time, the primary objects of their consensus are supposedly radically subjective; and they cannot therefore in principle have access to each others subjective absolute.

Nonetheless according to you, they somehow reach a consensus about something i.e. each other’s subjective absolute concept: regarding which, they have in principle and in the first place no public access to … including any final concept of a mediating consensus itself.

Nice going Professor: an incoherent behaviorism melded to a self-serving subjectivity, in the name of appetite satisfaction and personal gain, masquerading as political principle. You have quite a game going there.

PS: And yes, I continue to assert that the scientific method is applicable and universally used in any investigative effort, in the discipline, for example, science, or philosophy, or even in …, pedagogically speaking. The scientific method replicates the workings of the mind when in the investigation mode, which might actually be always, probably is. Now there is an objective truth for ya (Just kidding!).”

Yet another is your ongoing series of desperate evasions regarding the question as to, “what the subject matter of your inquiry was and what you thought you were teaching.”

Yes, Hoagie, you are mistaken, grossly mistaken. You and your tribe, most of whom purport to be Christians, have lost the values which your religion teaches and which Jesus Christ has modeled.

You have replaced sharing with greed, such that you accuse the “left organism” of stealing from the producers, when you should be focused on sharing. It is even to the point where such as Eric will label the sharing value as being Marxist, you too, in your attempts to justify your greed.

Spare us your phony left wing “Morality”, Perry, because we know you don’t believe a word of it. As proof, Dana has kindly provided a link such that anyone who feels they owe the government more money can simply click it and send them some. Have you used that link, Perry? I thought not. If you’re not willing to pay the government more money so as they can engage in the “Kompassion” you claim is the government’s job, then you are not only a moral phony but a Scrooge as well, who would rather cling to his wealth than share it with others.

Or let me put it this way: You and your ilk whine endlessly about “The Bush tax cuts”. Well, you’re middle class. You benefitted from those tax cuts. So, to prove you’re not a phony and a hypocrite, send Uncle Sam the monetary difference between your present (Bush era) taxes versus what you would have paid under Clinton. Shouldn’t be too hard, should it?

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. (1 Timothy 6:9-11)

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” (Luke 3:10-11)

This is rich! Here we have someone who openly scoffs at the Christian faith quoting from the New Testament to try to prove a “point”.

I suppose I could return the favor by quoting Marx back at Perry, but I don’t happen to have any of the old fraud’s writings at hand.

Isn’t it interesting that the Socialists among us, such as Perry, are so paranoid of and fearful of so-called “Dominionists” and the aims of the imagined evil monster that they have an irrational hatred toward Christians in the political world, and yet, when put to it, the Socialists among us, such as Perry (as he so helpfully wrote it down himself), push a very real and militantly atheistic Dominionism, replete with a complete and utter distortion of the very words of Jesus whom they deny so adamantly and Whom they demand has no place at the governing table?

But you are mistaken, and yes, you do need an agnostic to teach you Christ, for you have strayed, hugely!

If you are not willing to accept the authority of Christ, then it is hugely arrogant of you to pretend to believe in Him so that you can use this to attack others.

If you don’t believe in Christ, fine. But then stop citing Him as some sort of authority. I don’t tell Buddhists how to live, you should stop telling Christians how to live likewise. Otherwise, you just look like an arrogant bully, and a moral fraud as well.

Ands since you’ve become such a student of Our Lord Jesus, when He said: “If your brother asks for your shirt, give him your coat, also.”, can you point out where He said when your brother asks for your shirt, give him sombody elses shirt and coat also”

Good point, Hoagie. Left wingers are always willing to be generous with someone else’s money.

Sounds good, as long as Republicans understand that our Constitution is a living document with regard to applying it’s principles in today’s context.

What is your source for this statement? From what authority, legal or otherwise, do you derive it?

Whoops, you mean there IS no such authority? You mean, you just made it up out of thin air? That it is (I hate to repeat myself, but I have no choice) yet another self-serving lie from Perry and his ideological ilk?

For, of course, a “Living document” is, in reality (and per their own definition) a dead document. If its words have no clear and objective meaning, then it is just mush.

It’s funny how you and your ilk cite Christ and God when it suits your convenience, yet in your very own convention, the suggestion that God be included in your Party’s platform was roundly booed by the assembly.

What does Jesus think about abortion and when human life begins? I give you a single sentence from the Old Testament — which is 100 percent sacred Jewish Holy Scripture:

When I was in my mother’s womb, You knew me.

That is what Providence thinks of abortion and the beginning of human life. And for the Socialist Perry to demonize Holy scripture like he does to serve an anti-Providence goal only piles heaping coals upon his own head for when Judgment is meted out to him upon his death.

Like you actually know anything about a country you don’t live in, Phoenician. Where is your evidence for the majority wanting them out?

—-
As of this writing, every single state except Hawai’i has finalized its vote totals for the 2012 House elections, and Democrats currently lead Republicans by 1,362,351 votes in the overall popular vote total. Democratic House candidates earned 49.15 percent of the popular vote, while Republicans earned only 48.03 percent — meaning that the American people preferred a unified Democratic Congress over the divided Congress it actually got by more than a full percentage point.
—-

But if we are not all on the same page, that is the page of doing what we believe is best for all Americans, black, white, rich or poor, then we are betraying the fundamental idea of the Constitution and that of Freedom itself.

When I see major cities in this country run by one party for decades, gerrimandered if you will, steeped in drugs, illigitimacy, crime, corruption, poor if any education, all the while one party holds a death grip on those cities I have to ask; Is this really what the Republic should look like?

Shorter Hoagie: “Subverting democracy for power is okay as long as MY side does it”.

We note that Perry, the self-proclaimed scientist and chemistry teacher, has, despite having been asked repeatedly, not yet sourced his quote to the effect that:

“Scientific objectivity means that independent observers, using the same procedures, will come to consensus.”

Of course that does not even address what I asked. In connection with Perry’s challenging the notion of the existence of any objective reality, I had actually asked what subject matter his scientific operations were applied to, and what it was he thought he had been teaching.

Ruling the very question itself out of bounds with a, “No scientist would ever make a statement like this …” remark, Perry derisively proceeded to supply a retort supposedly based on some operational premise embraced by those scientific types, like himself presumably, in-the-know.

Thus, Perry responded to a question not asked, with:

“Scientific objectivity means that independent observers, using the same procedures, will come to consensus.”

So exactly who “in the know” was it who wrote this seemingly relativistic and subjectivist description of the scientific method?

Who’s the authority for this non-answer to a question I did not even ask? Werner Heisenberg, possibly? Some post-modernist piece of shit like Richard Rorty?

Perhaps Perry himself wrote it, and it’s from one of his text books. Since, after all, he claims to be a “scientist” – although he has persistently refused to define just what object it was he was supposedly scientifically investigating and later teaching.

Perry certainly delivered his retort with an air of categorical authority:

No scientist would ever make a statement [sic (it was a question)] like this, DNW. In science, you are out of your realm, perhaps in philosophy as well, you know, confused.

Consider this:

“Scientific objectivity means that independent observers, using the same procedures, will come to consensus.”

This is another way to view the ‘scientific method’.”

Wow. If the quoted material doesn’t answer the question as to what it is that Perry thought he was researching and teaching all these years, or whether the phenomena he engaged had a public reality independent of his own mind, it certainly seemed to imply that the methodology employed by those not “out of their realm” understood that they habitually created realities through consensus rather than uncovered objective realities through repeatable methodologies.

So where did the quote really come from? Perry’s now had a couple days to clarify and ground, to offer up a “citation please”. But he hasn’t.

Well as near as I can tell, and as we probably all suspected, the quote is not from say, Heisenberg’s lectures on the philosophy and method and subject matter of science. Nor, does it Google up as something written by one of the many famous historians or philosophers of science. It’s not even the ranting of some despicable post modernist.

Instead, it appears verbatim as the first part of an unattributed phrase from a longer WikiAnswers “Best Answers” passage; which, taken in its entirety, actually contradicts Perry’s insinuation.

Thus:

“Scientific objectivity means that independent observers, using the same procedures, will come to consensus regarding the phenomenon they are studying. In other words, personal opinions, values, and biases will not change observations recorded with scientific objectivity.”

You will note that the original addresses the subject matter(s) as phenomena “the phenomenon”, a classically employed term to describe appearances or events, whereas Perry’s modified description of “science” or even its method, lacks any mention of an external subject matter at all: as it must, given his extreme subjectivity and relativism.

Well, no wonder he wouldn’t identify the source of his quote. He had falsified its sense in the first place. And, in support of an intellectually insupportable aim.

And yes, since Perry chose to do what he does on an extremely regular basis — refuse to source his supposed quotes — I did what I often do: google the quote to find the disease from whence it came or to find the TRUE quote and not Perry’s lie-filled version of it (such as the lie-filled version you pointed out above).

It appears that Perry has been having serious difficulty for a couple of days using the block quote function.

Despite my serious annoyance with him, and my obvious lack of respect for either his forthrightness or his ideology and politics, I still hope that this trouble he’s having is indicative of a computer difficulty, rather than anything else.

While noticing and puzzling over this, I at the last moment recognized that he had essentially melded or appended certain retorts of his within text of mine which he had quoted within the same block quote function.

He had still not directly answered the critical question he was asked. But apparently he did attempt some evasive rejoinders which were somehow appended without break to my text, and set off only to the extent that they appear to be italicized.

As in, for example:

“DNW asked some questions:

Is the “reality” you purport to engage as a scientist, public and found outside yourself; is it inter-subjectively accessible? Of course. I note that your libertarian values are and have been in the vast minority for many years.

Do you take these so-called realities as necessarily existing for any person other than for, or to, your particular self? It is up to the choice of each individual, as I have said many times. “

The incorporated retorts or comments having been in italics.

They are not answers; but, even though evasive and misleading, they were probably replies of a sort.

I doubt that Perry deliberately intended to bury them within my text as a way or disguising either their presence or their vapidity.

It’s something else, probably. Either worrying or trivial, as the case may be.

Perry if you are reading this and you are not having recognizable problems with your computer, take a break from this and get some rest for a couple of days.

—-
As of this writing, every single state except Hawai’i has finalized its vote totals for the 2012 House elections, and Democrats currently lead Republicans by 1,362,351 votes in the overall popular vote total. Democratic House candidates earned 49.15 percent of the popular vote, while Republicans earned only 48.03 percent — meaning that the American people preferred a unified Democratic Congress over the divided Congress it actually got by more than a full percentage point.
—-

Is this what passes for “Logic” Down Under?

You are aware, of course, that there is no such thing as a “National” election for Congress? There are instead 435 individual Congressional races. All your figures can do is suggest that there are some Democrats who were elected to Congress by a bigger margin of votes than some Republicans. That is not exactly surprising. A black Democrat Congressman living in an overwhelmingly black district may get the vast majority of votes, indeed, in some cases there might not be a Republican challenger at all. And you will find a number of white left wing Congressmen (or women) who pull off similar results in left wing enclaves like San Francisco, Marin Country, and parts of Massachusetts. In contrast, Republicans, even in the Deep South, will rarely get these kind of lopsided victories because, even if they get nearly all the white vote, they probably won’t win the black vote which, in most Southern states, is substatial.

But maybe that’s too complex for you to grasp. So I repeat my simple analogy of the baseball scoreboard. Your citing that Democrats in Congress, as a whole, got more votes is like saying that a certain baseball team got more hits in a game. Which, of course, is irrelevant. All that matters is which team got the most runs, or in the case of Congress, got the most people elected. And that was us, the Republicans.

And gerrymandering is just one more version version of voter suppression

No, it’s important to get the terminology right. Gerrymandering is not voter suppression – it’s a means of voter nullification.

Oh, so you would say, then, that the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, was a means of voter nullification? After all, its mandate to create majority-minority voting districts wherever reasonably practical, based on the notion that to fail to do so would lessen the chances for blacks or other minorities to be able to elect one of their “own,” is a means of nullifying the votes of white people in those districts? That is, after all, the result!

New Zealand has something called a “mixed member proportional” voting system, which chooses its Parliament by a system which looks just plain odd to me. I noted that they have a “general electorate and (a) Māori electorate,” so I assume that our Kiwi Kommenter is familiar with the notion behind our Voting Rights Act which tries to insure that some racial minority candidates win seats.

Many democracies have similar systems, and if that is what they wish, they can have them. To me, they look more like the multi-party cacophony which has led to so much government instability in places like Italy and Israel, where the plurality parties must make shifting alliances with very small, often narrow-interest parties, to form governing majorities. In the United States, a representative is elected to represent the people of his district, not a party, and if my representative is a Democrat for whom I did not vote — and he is; due to redistricting forced by the loss of a congressional district, I am no longer represented by a Republican, even though the Republican who was our Representative in the last Congress won re-election — he is still supposed to be my Representative. That system has served us well enough for 224 years.

As much as I’d like to continue, I must go shower. Today is Lunch at the Club. You remember, where we greedy, Christian, Republicans feed 60 poor people and give them food to take home. Where we have a nurse on hand to administer free flu shots, check for malnourishment and check the teeth of the kids.

Just so you know, the Club does this with our own money, don’t need no government. It’s our money, our time, our labor, our product and we give it freely. Yep, Wagonwheel, the elderly, the indigent and sometimes just the lonely who need someone to talk to. Today all the old “Lost and Found” stuff comes out so there should be a lot of good clothing to add more help in the cold weather.

We have three old curmuddgeons to do the work, all retired. One is a fat guy with bad legs, one a thin guy also with bad legs and me with COPD. But we get’er done. We cook, we serve, we clean then we sit down and drink a spell. Two Swedenborgians and a Lutheran. All faux Christians. BTW, what are you doing today?

This is commendable, Hoagie, but not nearly on the scale that is needed. A worthwhile function of government is to assist people in need, and to provide the tools to enable those who can to extricate themselves from poverty with education and hard work. Yet today’s Republicans seem to want to continue to abandon these people in need.

The trouble is that Hoagie and the other two Wise Men have a system which requires no application, but one in which they could and probably would exercise judgement if necessary, whilst the government system you say we need cannot exercise judgement, and has resulted in system abusers and intergenerational dependency. What you see as the solution to one problem has created another. And what you see as the solution to the problem of poverty has cost us trillions of dollars, and left us with a poverty rate that is just as high now as it was when all of these oh-so-compassionate systems were created.

If our welfare system actually worked in the way it was intended, to give people who need a temporary hand up temporary assistance, and care for those who are permanently disabled, there would be no substantial objections to it. The problem is that it has not worked that way, but has enabled people who could use a temporary hand up to decline to try to help themselves and decide to live without working for long periods of time, has enabled the creation of a permanent dependency class.

I’m a practical sort of guy, and I like things that actually work . . . and our welfare system does not work.

“Yet today’s Republicans seem to want to continue to abandon these people in need.”

Really Wagonwheel? Do you actually believe Republicans want to “abandon” people in need? You really don’t get it do you? Some people are in need because they can’t do anything about it. Some people are in need because they won’t. There is a BIG difference. I do not believe in helping those who “won’t” but I strongly support helping those who “can’t”. When the government “helps” the people who can’t get buried under the scores of dick-heads who won’t. And the government cannot recognize the difference. I can.

We ended up with a total count of 83 people at the Club yesterday. The eldest being a 101 year old, adorable, Lady, alone and yesterday was her birthday. Cory ( the thin guy with bad legs ) was shutteling people all over the place. He spent more time in the van than in the Club. Yet he still found the time to swing past the bakery and get the old broad a birthday cake! Go figure. I would have never thought of it. Emmylu’s daughter, a RN, gave out 22 flu shots. We bagged over 40 meals “to go”. Roy (the fat guy with bad legs) dragged out the Lost & Found and some kid ( a Club member) started rooting through it looking for….whatever. I looked at her and said “That’s not for you, that’s for them”. This kid comes from a wealthy family and she’s looking through the L&F for HERSELF when there were people there without coats! What balls!

Anyway, we finished up about 7pm. The “boys” and I went down stairs to the bar and drank ourselves silly. My tab was $80 (+a twenty tip )and that’s at Club prices. The Club manager got in a new beer, Triple Horse. 10.7% ABV. Holy crap, did we get ripped! Shots of Knob Creek and Triple Horse chasers. About 10pm I called June and asked her to pick me up before 11. There was no way I was driving, nor were the Guys. She took the guys home and read me the Riot Act. I guess I deserved it. The good news is since my car is at the Club, she has to take me back today to pick it up! I figure I can get away with a lot of crap since tomorrow is my 62′nd birthday. June may not agree.

To the Leftists, “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth government doing.” And they show it by having less than stellar charitable contribution rates. To Conservatives, “if it’s worth doing, I’ll do it myself.” And they show it by having higher charitable contribution rates than the Leftists.

And, by the way, private charities are far more fiscally efficient and far more discerning in who gets the aid (those who actually need it and not the slothful) than is the government (which feeds itself first and the worshiping masses second).

Really Wagonwheel? Do you actually believe Republicans want to “abandon” people in need? You really don’t get it do you? Some people are in need because they can’t do anything about it. Some people are in need because they won’t. There is a BIG difference. I do not believe in helping those who “won’t” but I strongly support helping those who “can’t”. When the government “helps” the people who can’t get buried under the scores of dick-heads who won’t. And the government cannot recognize the difference. I can.

Dennis Miller (who appears on O’Reilly once a week) has an interesting approach. ‘I’m fine with helping the helpless”, he says, “But helping the clueless is another matter”.

My own position is that there should be a hieracrchy of help, with the Federal government coming in dead last. If you find yourself in need, you should turn to, in order of importance:

“Yet today’s Republicans seem to want to continue to abandon these people in need.”

PS Hoagie, this is the classic “Giveaway and guilt” game that left wingers play. They claim that government charity is the only charity that counts, and thus if you object to their roto rootering all your tax money away, then you must be some sort of heartless bastard.

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